Look beyond a paper’s citation circle with Litmaps

A useful paper gives you somewhere to start. It also gives you a particular set of references. When a question crosses disciplines, a second route into the literature can be valuable: ask which papers discuss similar things, independently of whether they belong to the same citation network.

Litmaps offers both routes. Its default search follows citation connections; Similar Text uses AI to compare titles and abstracts. This guide uses that difference to build a reading shortlist.[1]

The steps follow public documentation checked on 28 October. We have not run the searches. Use a paper you already know as the starting input; the research question below is an original illustration, with no claimed search results.

For the advanced-search part, use Pro or Team access. Litmaps lists basic search in its free plan and advanced search in its paid plans.[3]

Keep the starting paper fixed

In Litmaps’ search bar, find the paper, select it and choose Explore Related Articles. Suggested papers appear on the map and in the sidebar.[2]

Write down your question before opening the suggestions. For example: Which studies measure the heat experienced by people walking along shaded routes? That wording gives you a reason to distinguish a walking-route study from a paper that merely mentions trees and temperature.

Review the default results first. Then open the algorithm icon in the Litmap and select Similar Text. Keep the same starting article while comparing the two sets.[2]

Compare the papers against your question, rather than counting how many each route produces. In the walking example, inspect what was measured, where it was measured and whether people’s journeys are actually part of the study. Record unfamiliar terms worth trying in a later search.

Save relevance separately from search inputs

Open a promising paper and use its tag control to choose an existing Tag or create a New Tag. Tags remain accessible in the left sidebar.[4]

A useful name for this exercise is Shaded routes — read next. Keep a short note outside the app explaining why each paper belongs. “Measures conditions along a route” is a more useful reason than “appeared near the top”.

More Like This adds a recommendation to the Litmap; rerunning then uses the added paper as another input. Do that after your initial comparison, so you can tell whether a new discovery followed the algorithm change or the expanded starting set.[2]

The database depends on available research metadata. A missing paper can reflect absent metadata or indexing delays, and listed research can still be behind a paywall. An unproductive search therefore cannot establish that a topic has no literature.[6]

Take the shortlist with you

Open the saved Tag, choose Export All, select BibTeX, RIS or CSV, then Download. CSV suits a spreadsheet; BibTeX and RIS serve reference-manager workflows.[5]

Open the exported file and compare its titles with your accepted shortlist. Keep the search date and starting paper alongside it. You now have a small, explainable reading queue: each entry has a reason to be there and a source you can inspect next.

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